Stop The Wedding!: Night Driving / Smooth Sailing / Crash Landing

“I wish I could have seen you walking on stilts,” he mused, his voice softening. “Not when you fell, of course. I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Really?” She canted her head, studied him.

“Just…well…you’re so graceful. I bet when you walked on stilts it was like you were dusting clouds.”

“Why, Boone, how romantic. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He made a face. “Really? As I was saying it, I thought, ‘Come on, Toliver, this is way too cheesy.’”

“It might have sounded cheesy coming from someone else, but you do not throw around compliments, so when you say something like that, I know you mean it.”

A long silence stretched between them and Tara started fretting that she’d said too much.

“I don’t dislike you, you know,” he mumbled.

Her heart thumped strangely. “You don’t?”

“Not at all.”

“You’re not very friendly to me most of the time.”

“It’s because you scare the hell out of me.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.”

Tara gulped past the odd lump in her throat. “Why’s that?”

“Because I do like you.”

“Really?”

“That’s the problem,” he rushed to add. “I don’t want to like you.”

She felt a little hurt that he didn’t want to like her, but she pretended it rolled right off her shoulders. “Any particular reason why?”

“You’re hard to keep up with.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ve got a quicksilver mind.”

“Is that a compliment or a complaint?”

“Just an observation.”

“What does quicksilver mean, exactly?”

“Changing unpredictably.”

“I don’t do that.”

“You do,” he disagreed.

“Oh, look.” She pointed at the red sports car that sped by them in the fast lane. “A Porsche Boxster. I always wanted one of those.”

“If you were in school these days they’d probably diagnose you with ADHD and put you on Ritalin.”

Tara pursed her lips in thought. “Probably. I took home all kinds of notes telling my parents I was a chatterbox who couldn’t sit still.”

That got a smile from him. It was small, but it was a smile and damn if she didn’t feel pleased as punch. “Some things never change.”

“Let me guess what kinds of notes you took home from school.” Tara tapped her index finger against her chin. “‘Dear Mr. Toliver, Boone dusts the erasers far too hard when he’s playing teacher’s pet.’”

“I didn’t get notes in school.”

Tara laughed. “Why am I not the least bit surprised?”

“You know,” he said, “this isn’t so bad.”

“What isn’t?”

“Being trapped in a car with you.”

“You thought it was going to be bad?”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “I mean, we don’t get along at the best of times and a cross-country road trip is definitely not the best of times.”

“What do you mean, we don’t get along? I thought we got along famously.”

“You did?”

“Sure.”

“Lemonade,” he mumbled.

“I know you don’t really mean it when you get all grumbly. You just don’t want anyone seeing you with your guard down so you push people away. I don’t take it personally.”

“You forgive everyone.” He sounded amazed. “Do you take anything personally?”

“Meredith Moncu,” she said.

Boone frowned. “I’m not following.”

“Meredith Moncu. I took her personally.”

“Who is Meredith Moncu?”